COMPETING in this year's Winter Olympics are five borough residents who began their careers on the once world-famous Richmond ice rink.

Alpine skier Chemmy Alcott, a former Surbiton High School pupil and Twickenham resident, first stepped onto the ice at Richmond and has brought the rink back into the spotlight ten years after its controversial demise.

The 19-year-old has been speaking of the positive influence the rink had on her career and her distress when she discovered it had been knocked down and replaced with luxury housing.

This year her fellow Olympic athletes include the speed skaters 29-year-old Nicky Gooch, who grew up in Roehampton, 21-year-old Sarah Lindsay, from Kingston, and 21-year-old Joanne Williams, from Isleworth who also trained at Richmond Ice Rink. Britain's only luge competitor, 28-year-old Mark Hatton from Middlesex, is another ice rink graduate.

It has been ten years since the council granted planning permission for the rink to be demolished, but the controversy surrounding its demise has never died down.

Last month Richmond Hill resident, Richard Meacock, appeared on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast programme in a bid to get more support for his decade-long campaign to bring the rink back to Richmond.

Mr Meacock proved so popular that he won a competition in which the programme's viewers called in to back the cause they felt most worthy.

He told the Times: "We won the sponsorship of Channel 4 for the campaign. It was wonderful and Channel 4 have said we are going to get programmes specifically made for the rebuilding of the ice rink.

"It is quite stunning. There was an immediate response from Serge Lourie but I am very disappointed the Liberal Democrats haven't seen this as an opportunity to progress the ice rink."

Mr Meacock wants to get the council to sign a contract with Channel 4, agreeing that they will build the ice rink on land next to the swimming pool in Old Deer Park.

But Richmond upon Thames Council continue to insist that there is no suitable site available.

Council leader Serge Lourie said: "The problem with the ice rink, which was never owned by the council, is that to build a new one will cost anywhere between ten and 25 million pounds and £1million a year in revenue to support. There is also the fact that there's no appropriate site which residents would find acceptable.

"If Richard Meacock can raise the capital and find the site and get a proper business plan together then we of course would be delighted to have an ice rink in Richmond.

"It's quite clear to me that any potential funders would run a mile rather than fund an ice rink."